Homer Alaska - News

"It's really isolated. I don't remember seeing this on radar before," he said Wednesday morning. "It's not moving anywhere. It's not going up the inlet, it's not going down the inlet. It's just stationary. This is a tough one."

The system spun off from a storm in Prince William Sound, with band after band rolling in, dumping 12 to 24 inches of snow last Friday, 16 more inches on Saturday and 4 to 5 inches on Sunday. In the worst of it, winds gusted up to 60 mph. With snow drifting erratically, getting exact measurements this week has been a challenge.

A weather observer on Highland Drive reported 3 to 4 feet of drifted and fallen snow. In many parts of town, people woke up to drifts Tuesday morning that came halfway up their doors and to their windows.

Firefighters and emergency medical technicians had only two big emergencies: a wreck caused by a whiteout Tuesday morning on Lake Street over Beluga Lake and a trailer fire off Greer Road at noon Tuesday.

Homer Police closed the causeway stretch of Lake Street between the stoplight and Ocean Drive while Homer Volunteer Fire Department EMTs responded to the accidents and tow trucks moved vehicles. EMTs took several victims to South Peninsula Hospital for non life-threatening injuries, said HVFD chief Bob Painter.

On Wednesday, police were still trying to sort out what happened, said Homer Police Lt. Randy Rosencrans. Police think at least seven vehicles were involved. A collision at the north end of Lake Street sent a Subaru up onto the guardrail. A tow truck got rear-ended when it stopped. Police closed the road for three hours.

"At one point, I could hear accidents and not see them," Rosencrans said. "That was when I decided this needed to be stopped — the bridge had to be closed."

In the worst of the storm Tuesday, Kachemak Emergency Services firefighters went to a trailer fire on Benjamin Avenue off Greer Road about noon. Drifting snow and high winds hampered the response, said KES Deputy Chief Steve Boyle. Fortunately, one volunteer firefighter, Greg Collins, had a plow truck and began clearing the road.

Boyle said the resident thought he'd put out the fire with an extinguisher, but it flared up under the trailer. Digging out snow to get through skirting around the bottom also frustrated firefighters. Crews had to cut through the kitchen floor to get at the fire and keep it from spreading, he said.

Although the trailer had smoke damage in the house and fire damage underneath, the man's personal effects weren't damaged. Firefighters worked until about 6 p.m. Tuesday putting out the fire and cleaning up equipment. HVFD provided mutual aid with one tanker and four firefighters, Painter said.

Other than the Lake Street accidents and the Benjamin Avenue fire, there weren't any other incidents. Police did respond to numerous fender-benders, Rosencrans said. He reminded drivers to turn on headlights and keep windows cleared.

"It's been very minimal considering the amount of snow that we've had, thankfully," Painter said.

"Everybody's tending to drive pretty slowly. You can't see. You can't drive that fast," Boyle said.

Homer Public Works snowplow crews could barely keep up with the storm. Gusting winds slowed efforts, said Public Works Director Carey Meyer.

"It isn't the amount of snow were getting. It's the fact it's drifting," he said. "We plow it out, 10 minutes later it's there again."

Public Works has four equipment operators working 35 miles of road starting at 4 a.m. daily. Crews plow main streets and bus routes first, then secondary and rural streets next. On Tuesday, crews couldn't get to side streets. Meyer used his own street as an example.

"Under normal circumstances, my road would have been plowed at least once a day," he said. "It wasn't plowed yesterday (Tuesday). We'll probably get up to it today."

Citizens have been complaining about snowplow operators not lifting plow blades at driveways. In light snow drivers can lift a gate to keep snow against the blade, but in heavy snow have to keep the blade down.

"With the volume of snow we're pushing and the kind of snow we've had, the snow gate is pretty useless," he said.

In the 10 years he's worked as director, Meyer said this storm is the worst he's seen.

"We've probably seen more snow at times, but not this much snow at one time with the high winds in combination," he said.

Private snowplow operators had an equally tough job.

Having begun snow removal shortly after midnight during one of Homer's recent stormy days, Tom Patton of Kachemak Bay Construction and his crew stopped six hours later for a well-deserved breakfast break at Duncan House.

"A lady was sitting behind or next to them, had overheard their conversation and when she got up to check out, she told the owner, 'I can't believe with all this snow those plow guys are sitting here doing nothing, they're not out plowing,'" said Patton's wife, Lyn, laughing. "(The owner) told her they'd been out plowing since 1 a.m. She didn't know that. She thought they'd just woke up and had breakfast."

The Pattons are among those not grumbling about the recent storm. Little snow has resulted in little work. That changed when Tom Patton woke up early Friday and saw the storm beginning to break over Homer. He called his crew, they immediately began work and have barely stopped since.

"I think he's had about eight hours of sleep in the last four or five days," Lyn Patton said of her husband.

The storm caused closure of schools Friday and Tuesday, something seldom experienced on the southern Kenai Peninsula. Bus drivers were back on schedule Wednesday morning, delivering students to schools.

"We had a couple routes that were a little slow, but otherwise everything was plowed and we were good to go," said Larry Fielding of First Student. "There were a couple buses that had to use chains. I just want to thank the (Alaska) Department of Transportation and the city of Homer for plowing. Safety first."

Weather also kept Principal Randy Creamer and his faculty and staff from making their daily 2-mile journey to and from Kachemak Selo School at the head of the bay during the worst of the storm.

"This is not fun," said Creamer. "With this kind of weather, it's worrying about keeping your truck out of the ditch, finding the shoulder of the road and then, when you get (to the trail head at Voznesenka), can you get your four-wheeler started. It's those kinds of things."

Making up the two days of lost school time will take some juggling, according to Sean Dusek, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District assistant superintendent. District administrators are in communication with the state and have contractual obligations with teachers and support staff to consider. It appears the school year will be extended two days, however, that has not been finalized.

At the Homer Airport, Era Aviation got some flights out daily during the storm — except Tuesday.

"We did not get a single airplane in yesterday," said Julie Davis, Era Aviation station manager on Wednesday. "We've got an airport full of people."

Flights were canceled intermittently over the six-day storm. People have generally been understanding, she said.

Drifting snow caused some problems with oil heaters. On Monitor or Toyo heaters, the double-pipe flue brings in fresh air on the outside of an exhaust pipe in the middle. As happened with the Mount Redoubt volcano ashfalls, if the intake pipe gets clogged, the heater can shut down. Sometimes snow ices up in the intake pipe, too, said Mark Vial, owner of VBS Heating Products. One work-around is to take off the air intake hose on the inside and block it off, using inside house air.

Vial recommended keeping the flue clear and using a windbreak to keep snow from building up. He also suggested keeping the vent clear on fuel tanks.

Another concern is that high winds can force heater exhaust through cracks in doors and windows. Fire officials recommend people install carbon monoxide detectors to warn of dangerous levels of CO. Boyle said the storm didn't prompt any calls of CO alerts.

Some businesses were slow to open during the storm.

"We opened late Tuesday, but we opened," said Wendell Cummings, owner of Latitude 59.

Looking at Wednesday's windless, but heavy snowfall, Cummings was counting his blessings.

"It's still white out, but at least it's not blowing," he said.

Curves owner Barbara Howard said her members were "getting their exercise shoveling." The workout facility on Pioneer Avenue closed after the storm hit Friday.

"We opened for a few hours Saturday and opened Monday for about three hours, but didn't have any customers. Wisely so. People need to stay off the roads so clearing equipment can do a better job," said Howard, who plans to reopen today.

On the south side of Kachemak Bay, an outage Monday left 150 Seldovia members of Homer Electric Association without power. Weather kept HEA crews from flying across the bay Tuesday, but they were attempting to reach the area by boat Wednesday.

There was one bit of sunshine in the snow removal situation: that Public Works had four drivers on staff. In an early budget proposal last fall after a sales tax proposal failed, City Manager Walt Wrede had cut one position.

"We're happy the city council supported the idea of not getting rid of that equipment operator in that last budget session," Meyer said.

Mindful of Yogi Bera's classic quote that "It ain't over until it's over," officials and experts were hopeful the storm had passed.

"We're hoping we've seen the last day of it," Meyer said.

Peterson of the Weather Service said the outlook looked better for people hoping to get out of town this weekend for spring break. By Thursday the storm should have broken. The forecast calls for mostly sunny skies today, with cloudy skies through the weekend.

"I think it's over," Peterson said.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong.@homernews.com and McKibben Jackinsky at mckibben.jackinsky.@homernews.com.